The church is not a dormitory for sleepers, it is an institution for workers; it is not a rest camp, it is a front line trench.
Interpretation
The church should be an active place for people to work and serve, rather than a passive space for rest and complacency.
This quote by Billy Sunday emphasizes the idea that the church's primary role is to engage and mobilize people in service and action. Rather than being a comfortable place for individuals to simply rest or hide from the challenges of life, the church is portrayed as a battleground where believers should actively participate in their faith and contribute to meaningful work in the community.
In practice
In a sermon about community service, one might use this quote to highlight the importance of active faith.
Whenever a day comes when I can stand and preach God's Word without an agony of anxiety lest the people will not accept Christ; whenever a day comes when I can see men and women coming down the aisles without joy in my heart, I'll quit preaching.
Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than going to a garage makes you an automobile.
The saloon is a liar. It promises good cheer and sends sorrow.
I don't believe there are devils enough in hell to pull a boy out of the arms of a godly mother.
The trouble with many men is that they have got just enough religion to make them miserable. If there is not joy in religion, you have got a leak in your religion.
The backslider likes the preaching that wouldn't hit the side of a house, while the real disciple is delighted when the truth brings him to his knees.
The freedom now desired by many is not freedom to do and dare but freedom from care and worry.
The Grecians and Romans were strongly possessed of the spirit of liberty but not the principle, for at the time they were determined not to be slaves themselves, they employed their power to enslave the rest of mankind.
I see now more clearly than ever before that even our greatest troubles spring from something that is [as] admirable and sound as it is dangerous β from our impatience to better the lot of our fellows.
It seemed impossible that there could be people in the world who still desired food, who laughed, who neither knew nor cared that Sirius Black was gone forever.
Acceptance of one's life has nothing to do with resignation; it does not mean running away from the struggle. On the contrary, it means accepting it as it comes, with all the handicaps of heredity, of suffering, of psychological complexes and injustices.
Bolshevism is to be reckoned with Mohammedanism rather than with Christianity and Buddhism. Christianity and Buddhism are primarily personal religions, with mystical doctrines and a love of contemplation. Mohammedanism and Bolshevism are practical, social, unspiritual, concerned to win the empire of the world.
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